The CEO of Target is stepping down as the company continues to struggle to increase profits in the face of a boycott from Black customers. The change at the top of the company comes after months of Black customers avoiding the store over its decision to scale back programs to recruit Black and other minority employees and to support Black-owned businesses.

Target CEO stepping down as financial underperformance, sustained boycott continues

Target announced Wednesday morning that CEO Brian Cornell will be stepping down from his top position at the company. Michael Fiddelke, currently chief operating officer at Target, will step into the CEO role. The change in leadership will go into effect Feb. 1, 2026, with Cornell remaining at the company as the executive chair of the company’s board of directors. The change, unanimously approved by the Target board, comes as the company has underperformed financially in recent years, a situation that the company hopes Fiddelke will be able to change.

Target’s revenue drop comes as the company has faced a months-long boycott from the Black community. The protest against the company came after Target announced in January that it was ending programs intended to increase Black employment at the company and to support Black-owned businesses as vendors to Target. The announcement came days after President Donald Trump returned to the White House and issued orders targeting DEI programs across the country. After Target’s announcements, Black leaders, led by Atlanta-based Pastor Jamal Bryant, called for a boycott of the company’s stores. Foot traffic to Target stores steadily declined for months as the boycott has continued, and customers have also faced inadequate product options on the stores’ shelves.

Target CEO’s initial success story gives way to failure to resolve problems

Cornell’s departure ends a decade-long tenure that began strongly but faltered in recent years. Christine Leahy, the top independent director of the company’s board of directors, noted that “under Brian, Target has become a $100+ billion company, with revenues increasing by $34 billion in 11 years,” per Scripps News. However, revenues have fallen for the company in recent years, leading to Cornell seeing a nearly 90% decline in his own compensation, and Target’s economic problems have worsened in 2025 as it faces a sustained boycott by the Black community. News of Cornell’s departure came as a new earnings report showed that Target’s second-quarter earnings are down over 19% from the same quarter in 2024, according to Scripps News.

The last few years of Cornell’s leadership have come with controversy. The company faced a conservative boycott in 2023 over its Pride activities, leading the company to scale back its Pride efforts the following year. This year’s boycott from Black customers created a new challenge that Cornell has so far been unable to overcome. In April, Cornell held a meeting with Bryant and activists Nina Turner and Tamika Mallory but did not convince them to end the boycott. “Target is feeling the power of our communities and wants this boycott to end,” the boycott leaders said in a joint statement after the meeting, but continued that “we believe that Target CEO Brian Cornell remains unaware of the betrayal felt by our communities due to his company’s decision to cower to the Trump administration.”

Even as Cornell steps down, the underlying issues motivating the boycott remain. The leadership turnover at Target will potentially create an opportunity for the company to address the concerns of the Black community over representation and equitable treatment for the company’s employees and vendors. Whether or not Target changes course remains to be seen.

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